Here’s Why ISIS Murdered 305 Fellow Muslims in Egypt

On Saturday, the death toll of the deadliest terror attack in Egypt’s history rose to 305, while the country’s army started a new large-scale offensive against the local Islamic State group branch Wilayat Sinai.

The day before, a group of heavily armed terrorists waving the black Islamic State group’s flag arrived at a mosque packed with worshipers in Bir al-Abed, which is west of El Arish in the northern part of the Sinai desert, and started shooting in all directions. Though no group has officially claimed responsibility for the attack, many observers believe the terrorists were affiliated with Wilayat Sinai.

Thereafter, the terrorists detonated a bomb and continued shooting at survivors who wanted to escape the carnage.

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The Times of Israel reported the jihadists arrived in “five all-terrain vehicles and positioned themselves at the main door and the facility’s 12 windows before opening fire.”

At least 27 children were among those killed, while another 128 people were wounded in the massacre, according to local media.

Other eyewitnesses said children screamed in terror as the barbaric terrorists shouted “Allahu akbar” during the deadly shooting spree.

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The terrorists later began systematically liquidating people who were wounded in the attack, the eyewitnesses told The Associated Press.

“Everyone lay down on the floor and kept their heads down. If you raised your head you get shot,” Mansour, a Sufi Muslim who attended the prayer services in the al-Rawdah mosque, told the AP.

“The shooting was random and hysterical at the beginning, and then became more deliberate: whoever they weren’t sure was dead or still breathing was shot dead,” he added.

The attackers prevented Egyptian security forces from reaching the mosque by blocking roads with burned-out vehicles, according to three police officers.

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After the attack, the Egyptian government decided to announce a three-day mourning period, while President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi vowed the victims’ suffering wouldn’t be in vain and would only add to Egypt’s “resolve in the war on terror.”

“The armed forces and the police will avenge our martyrs and restore security and stability with the utmost force,” the Egyptian leader vowed.

El-Sisi later ordered a massive crackdown on Wilayat Sinai and by Saturday afternoon, at least 30 jihadists were reportedly dead.

The Muslims in the al-Rawdah mosque were most likely targeted because the Islamic State group regards their practicing of Islam a manifestation of polytheism, the greatest sin in Islam.

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The commander of Wilayat Sinai’s “morality police” said last year the group’s “first priority was to combat the manifestations of polytheism including Sufism.”

He said this after terrorists affiliated with his group had beheaded an elderly Sufi imam who was accused of practicing “witchcraft”.

Wilayat Sinai practices the Salafist version of Islam, and claims the Sufi Muslims are using “innovations” in their prayers, meaning melodies and rites the prophet Muhammad never prescribed.

However, Sufism has been accepted by Islam’s most important theologians, among them the head of the prestigious al-Azhar University in Cairo, and has been practiced for centuries prior to the invention of Salafism.

Observers now say that only Sufism can counter the rise of Salafism in Islam because Sufi Muslims have “the religious tools, intellectual skills, and political cunning to dismantle ISIS,” according to HuffPost analyst Sami Moubayed.

Northern Sinai has always had a large Sufi community, but in recent years the Sufi Muslims in the area had to struggle for survival due to the presence of Wilayat Sinai.

“There has long been a pull and push dynamic in the Sinai between Salafi Muslims and Sufi Muslims,” analyst Mohannad Sabry told Sky News on Friday.

“The Sufis are succeeding in drawing hundreds of youths from the terrorist organization in a way the military hasn’t been able to do,” he added, referring to Wilayat Sinai.

For this reason, the jihadist movement has now turned its guns on the Sufi community in northern Sinai after it announced in February 2017 that Christians were their favorite prey.

Since then, most Coptic Christian families in the area have left for other parts of Egypt or for Western countries.

“We can only prevail over Islamist terrorism if leaders of all faiths take the lead in openly and consistently denouncing the murderers who use God’s name to justify their evil and immoral agenda,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, a fellow at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, wrote after the massacre in Bir al-Abed.

However, leaders of predominantly Muslim countries, including el-Sisi, now think that in order to prevail, Islam must change from within.

“It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire umma (Islamic world) to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world. Wholly Impossible!” the Egyptian president said during a speech at the al-Azhar university in January 2016.

“Is it possible that 1.6 billion people (Muslims) should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants — that is 7 billion — so that they themselves may live? Impossible!” el-Sisi said at the time.

The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website.